32 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



commodities. The average prices, or price indexes, for all commodities 

 were to be based on 404 different items. 23 



Obviously, this complicated mathematical formula was confusing to 

 the average farmer, who preferred a blanket statement of how much he 

 was going to get for his product. "But index numbers to the statisticians," 

 someone suggested, "[are] like worms to a robin. They eat them up. 

 And so the best way to deal with this feature of the bill is to assume that 

 higher mathematics in the hands of experts will solve the problem of 

 proper price and that it will be satisfactory to the producer " 24 



Since the current average price for all commodities was supposed to be 

 a constantly changing one, the Secretary of Agriculture was assigned 

 the monthly task of first determining the average price of all commodities 

 before the current averages could be determined. The Secretaries of Agri- 

 culture and Labor jointly were to figure out the current average price 

 for each of the eight basic commodities. The control of the giant organiza- 

 tion which was to determine these prices was to be vested in four directors 

 who were to be appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture with the advice 

 and consent of the Senate. 25 



The next step consisted of the novel and ingenious scrip plan. As one 

 contemporary put it: 



The corporation issues some engraved pieces of paper called scrip, just as the post 

 office issues stamps, which will be sold for real money just as stamps are. A man 

 who intends to buy wheat from a producer must first provide himself with the 

 proper amount of scrip. He buys this from the post office which remits to the 

 corporation which keeps the money to offset its losses. Then the buyer uses this 

 scrip as cash in his purchase from the farmer. The corporation estimates its 

 probable loss over a given period and decrees the use of scrip accordingly. 

 If it thinks its losses will equal 10 cents on each bushel of wheat produced and 

 to be on the safe side doubles its guess, it would declare that scrip must be pur- 

 chased and used to the equivalent of 20 cents a bushel . . . every farmer who sells 

 his wheat at $1.60 would receive $1.40 in money and 20 cents in scrip. The scrip 

 would be worth nothing, except in the event that the losses of the corporation 



23. "A Digest of the Provisions of the McNary-Haugen Bill," Congressional 

 Digest, III (May, 1924), p. 266. 



24. "The McNary-Haugen Bill and the Farmer," The Independent, CXII (April 

 12, 1924), pp. 191-92. 



25. Congressional Digest, III (May, 1924), p. 266. 



